Epic roof damage: The overturned Mercedes A-Class in October 1997 went down in history as a moose test. The embarrassing incident brought Mercedes off track and ESP as standard in the lower classes. Now, 25 years later, the goal is: completely accident-free driving.
October 21, 1997 was a day of historic significance for Mercedes Benz. A date that not only stands for one of the darkest chapters in the company’s long history, but also for a turning point in terms of automobile safety policy. Exactly 25 years ago, on a sunny Tuesday, the Swedish magazine “Teknikens Värld” put the A-Class on its roof – and thus tipped a global corporation off track.
During the routine evasive manoeuvre, which would later go down in history as the moose test, the compact car first lifted a leg after a sudden lane change, then began to sway quite uncontrollably and finally rolled sideways. The roof damage for Mercedes was epic.
After the Swedes’ report was published, there was a huge media outcry all over the world, spiced with a good pinch of ridicule and scorn. What an embarrassment. Ironically Mercedes! Self-proclaimed leader in the industry when it comes to safety. Inventor of the crumple zone. The first to introduce ABS and airbags into series production. And now this.
As consistently as the global company initially rejected any responsibility and categorically ruled out technical problems, it finally acted. The first A-Class with standard ESP rolled off the assembly line at the beginning of February 1998. A decision with far-reaching consequences. Since then, even small cars cannot be imagined without the electronic stability program. Since November 2014, all new passenger cars registered in the EU must be equipped with ESP as standard.
The guardian angel for motorists, a combination of the ABS anti-lock braking system with traction control, electronic brake force distribution and a brake assistant, was first introduced in the S-Class in 1995 and has probably saved thousands of lives since then. In 2020, Bosch produced the 250 millionth ESP system, and 87 percent of all new cars sold worldwide had ESP on board.
For the technicians at Mercedes-Benz in particular, the crash of the A-Class was the wake-up call for a development that would end in the vision of completely accident-free driving. Currently projected to the year 2050. “Safety has long been a passion for us,” says Christoph Böhm, head of vehicle dynamics systems at Mercedes Benz, adding: “We cannot yet completely prevent an accident from occurring, but we can help significantly minimize severity and consequences with our technology.”
Böhm’s electronic lifeguards can only be efficient if the vehicle’s design is right. The work on this begins with the complex crash tests, in which a large number of loads are simulated. With more than 1500 simulations, the safety of passengers, components and the battery is checked before the car is put on the market. The battery and all high-voltage components are protected in such a way – sometimes in several stages – that they meet the highest safety requirements in the event of an accident. Sophisticated restraint systems in the interior protect the occupants effectively.
For the engineers in the Böhm team, the focus is on the networking of all systems. How is it possible to merge the sensors and functions of the brakes, steering, chassis and drive in such a way that in the end a single large, self-sufficient organ is created? Software, which is becoming increasingly complex, plays a decisive role in this.
“The goal is to one day develop this completely in-house,” says Böhm. Hundreds of software specialists are already working on this in the Mercedes laboratories in India, China, the USA and Germany. E-vehicles currently offer a great challenge, but also huge opportunities in the further development of all safety-relevant control systems. Electric motors are extremely powerful, i.e. enormously powerful and react to commands from the electronic masterminds with an extremely short delay.
This development is currently reflected, for example, in the networking of the driving dynamics and braking systems with the rear-axle steering. Driving tests with the all-electric EQE and EQS models also underline for laypeople how the electronics manage to keep the large, heavy cars safely on track during unexpected evasive maneuvers or emergency braking on surfaces with different coefficients of friction (dry/ice).
In addition, of course, there are all the other electronic assistants that scan the environment with foresight and concentrate every millisecond on that one moment when a moose might just be crossing the road.
